THERE WERE A total of 1,114 incidents and collisions on Ireland’s roads for the year to date which impacted on motorists’ journey times, according to figures from AA Roadwatch.
At 374, Dublin (excluding the M50) experienced nearly four times as many delays as anywhere else.
The head of AA Roadwatch, Aoife Carragher, said that this number represented a “staggering figure considering the number of minor tips and crashes that are pulled immediately off the road or which may never be reported.”
Dublin’s M50 motorway experienced the second highest number of delays, at 109.
Regional cities and the main commuter towns also suffered from a high number, with 97 incidents in Cork, 71 in Wicklow, 67 in Galway, and 57 in Limerick.
With just 21 delay-causing incidents reported in Waterford , Carragher said that “this may be a reflection of the fall in traffic flow through the city in the past number of years, or it may be a result of the opening of the N25 Waterford City Bypass.”
Rush hour
Early morning and evening rush hours were also responsible for a large number of collisions which led to delays, the majority within Wicklow, Kildare and Louth occurring on the N7/M7, the N11, N2 and on the M1.
The high number of collisions which continue to take place on the M50 shows that Irish drivers need to familiarise themselves with how to drive on three lane motorways, Carragher believes.
Major events throughout the year which caused delays were the visit by Hillary Clinton, the Bavaria Formula One street race, the Volvo Ocean Race in Galway and the Tall Ships event in Dublin.
“The oldest and the best piece of AA Roadwatch advice is to slow down and to allow plenty of time for your journey – heeding this advice would go a long way to prevent many of these incidents,” Carragher says.
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